Delphi pinned the Southeast Asian city-state as the epicenter of autonomous vehicle adoption several years ago and with the addition of NuTonomy, which also has an office in Singapore, plans to expedite its efforts to launch an autonomous car service.

Singapore's Land Transport Authority selected Delphi in 2016 as the lead contractor for its mission to bring autonomous driving options to the wealthy metropolis with a commercial program in 2020 or 2021.

Glen De Vos, chief technology officer for Delphi, now says that will likely happen sooner with NuTonomy on board.

"... our expectation is that by doing this, we're able to actually accelerate some of those initial deployments into the 2019 timeframe," De Vos said last week on a conference call with reporters and analysts.

NuTonomy launched public roads testing of an on-demand mobility service in Singapore in August 2016, partnering with Groupe PSA, Renault and Mitsubishi. It had planned to launch the service fully in the second quarter of 2018.

Delphi and NuTonomy will now begin to combine their respective test programs with Singapore's transport authority.

Singapore is an autonomous vehicle hotbed because its government has made implementation a priority, said Qiang Hong, senior research scientist for the transportation systems analysis group of Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

"Singapore has long been active in applying advanced ITS technologies such as congestion pricing and traffic control," Hong said. "Usually they adopt a top-down approach so it's very effective, aligning tech applications with national planning goals."

For Singapore, it's essential. Despite only having a surface area one-sixth the size of Rhode Island, it has five times the population at roughly 5.6 million. Congestion is so bad, Singapore is banning, starting in February, vehicle registrations. Its population will have to get by with the roughly 600,000 private and rental vehicles in circulation today through 2020, according to an Engadget report last week.

"We face constraints in land and manpower," Pang Kin Keong, Singapore's Permanent Secretary for Transport and the chairman of its committee on autonomous driving, told Bloomberg in 2016. "We want to take advantage of self-driving technology to overcome such constraints, and in particular to introduce new mobility concepts which could bring about transformational improvements to public transport in Singapore."

The NuTonomy acquisition, which is expected to close before the end of this year, will nearly double Delphi's 100-plus automated driving team with NuTonomy's 100 employees, including 70 engineers and scientists, the company said in a news release.

It will continue to operate in Boston, alongside Delphi's team there, as well as in Delphi offices in Pittsburgh; Santa Monica, Calif.; and in Silicon Valley in California.

Upon completion of the transaction, Delphi will have 60 autonomous-driving cars testing on roads in three continents, the company said.

The acquisition of NuTonomy is the latest for Delphi as it races to build its autonomous driving business. Delphi acquired Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon spinoff Ottomatika in 2015 for an undisclosed sum; Allen Park-based Control-Tec LLC, a provider of telematics and analytics software provider, for $100 million; and Plymouth-based over-the-air software update provider Movimento Inc. for an undisclosed sum.

The four autonomous driving add-ons will continue to operate as separate entities, but will coordinate on projects, De Vos said.

Delphi is also spinning off its powertrain unit to focus on developing technology for autonomous and connected automotive systems, the culmination of years of moves aimed at focusing the auto supplier on advanced technologies. The spinoff, which will be tax-free, is expected to be completed by March, Delphi said. Current Delphi shareholders will hold stock in both companies.